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Here Thar Be Monsters!

From the other side of the argument to the other side of the planet, read in over 149 countries and 17 languages. We bring you news and opinion with an IndoTex® flavor. Be sure to check out Radio Far Side. Send thoughts and comments to luap.jkt at gmail,and tell all your friends. Sampai jumpa, y'all.

25.1.14

Few people, even artists, stop to realize that art is the highest form of mathematics. Just as language has informal and formal forms, mathematics has formulae and aesthetics. Language has grammar and vocabulary, art has principles and elements. Mathematics is to art what language is to poetry. Mathematics are the tools by which we create beauty and harmony.

In language, we arrange words in a meaningful ways. The writer's job is to make that arrangement the most pleasing and harmonious composition possible. In mathematics, we arrange numbers in meaningful ways. The artist's job is to arrange the numbers in ways that we want to hang on our wall or go to a museum to see.

Music is nothing but mathematics. It is the science of vibration and harmonics massaged into glorious sound. Music uses time, sine waves and vibrations in order to create individual sounds that are then blended into deeply moving compositions.

Art uses light, shadow, perspective, and spacial relationships. It uses shape, form and function. It blends these geometric and physical concepts into images that evoke emotional responses in the viewer. Art is numbers given voice, because the greatest art speaks to us in a voice that we intuitively know is that of the Universe itself.

How many of us analyze the way we perceive the Universe? How do we know what something feels like by looking at a photo of it? How do we know something is further or higher than another? You may think these are elementary questions, but try closing one eye for a day and going about your normal routine. Without stereo vision, what clues are you using to navigate the world?

Here's a fun and easy experiment. Take a friend or family member and sit them in a dark room. Take a portable light source, say a flashlight, and move the flashlight around their head. Try every position - up, down, sides, back, dead on. How do you feel when you see their head lit from different positions? Which ones "feel" right and which "feel" wrong? Which frighten you and which attract you? Which ones are boring and which exciting?

Now ask yourself, "Why do I feel these things?"

It is not an easy question and the answer requires many hours of deep reflection. That is art.

We all know the old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words, and this is why. It is easier to show artistic principles than it is to describe them because the language we need is visual. Try describing a shadow to a blind person. Try telling them the difference between red and green. Better yet, take your blind friend to the Louvre, stand them in front of the Mona Lisa and tell them why everyone marvels at that picture. It can be done, but it will take a long time and the right vocabulary.

How many of us stop to consider that a trapezoid is just a square viewed from one edge? That means that pyramids are cubes viewed from a certain perspective.

Art is a rabbit hole that causes us to turn our Universes upside down and start thinking about what our senses are telling us. This is the primary difference between great art and crap. Art that doesn't clarify some universal secret or take us out of our complacent lives is NOT art. It is just noise, and the world is full of noise.

Art is the glory of silence. As anyone who has ever tried to record silence knows, there is no such thing. But, there is the control of noise to create softness and harmony, and that is art.

Control of noise is done through mathematics, and when that control rises to its highest expression, that is art. Regardless of which sense is receiving the noise, we can mathematically organize the noise to make it pleasing to our senses. That is the artist's job.

The more we observe our Universe, the more we appreciate the great works of art. And if you need proof that art exists beyond the senses, then remember that one of the greatest painters (Claude Monet) was blind, and one of the greatest composers (Ludwig von Beethoven) was deaf.

21.1.14

It rains.
It rains a sweat.
It rains canines and felines.
It rains buttercups and teaspoons.
It rains a lick.
It rains a promise.
It rains rivers, lakes and oceans.
It rains a mountain.
It rains a forest.
It rains macaus and monkeys.
It rains a rot.
It rains a depression.
It rains workboots and witchdoctors.
It rains sheets.
It rains pillows.
It rains meetings and schedules.
It rains a temptation.
It rains a salvation.
It rains mold and feathers.
It rains rice.
It rains apples.
It rains pitchforks and mice.
It rains blueprints.
It rains purchase orders.
It rains hammers and nails.
It rains an eternity.
It rains a death.
It rains dingbats and dinghies.
It rains Life.
It rains apocalypse.
It rains ruin and rum.
It rains Shakespeare; it rains eliot.
It rains ten times before breakfast.

It rains a question.
It rains an opera.
It rains hot afternoons.
It rains the Universe on a platter.
It rains a lightness; it rains a darkness.
It rains murder and mayhem.
It rains a plot.
It rains an idiom.
It rains metaphors and soliloquies.
It rains another roadside attraction.
It rains a horror.
It rains renewal.
It rains mushrooms and magpies.
It rains drums.
It rains pipes.
It rains banjos and banjir.
It rains like there's no tomorrow.
It rains hard.
It rains soft.
It rains.

12.1.14

At the beginning of the film 2010, Roy Scheider's character is told to have a look at the ship Discovery's orbit. When Scheider does so, he begins to chuckle with a conspiratorial tone and his eyes widen as he realizes just what it is he is looking at.

More and more people are swallowing the red pill and seeing, as Morpheus put it, the world that's been pulled over our eyes. More and more people are feeling that incredibly profound sense of helplessness that first confronts those of us who have seen the Matrix for what it is. And more and more people are scrambling around trying to find the silver bullet that will kill the blood suckers on the neck of humanity (can I mix a metaphor, or can't I?).

The aware mind will see in the ZH article exactly what I did...that the silver bullet is actually gold.

All the power, all the security states, all the devastation of culture, all the answers are summed up in one tiny word - gold. If We The People want to bring down the entire system of evil that is turning our world into a vast pit of moral and ethical morass, then all we have to do is demand, with unceasing voices, the complete and transparent audit of all gold holdings in the sovereign treasuries.

That's it.

So simple, and yet so complex. That one act would expose the entire system from stem to stern: all the secret alliances, all the covert operations, all the dirty laundry mouldering in the dark corners of history. It would reveal just who runs things and how. It would expose the ways and means of control. It would open the doors on all the secret programs and black budgets that have defined the last 100 years. We would know precisely who to boycott and target for litigation. We would have the untarnished proof of when and how our current mess was designed and implemented. It would, in fact, unravel the Matrix.

As Joseph Farrell aptly put it, gold is Ariadne's Thread, and a consistent tug on it will unravel the whole mess - quickly, if not painlessly. For to unravel this mess will expose many dark secrets that many people are not ready or willing to know - not because they won't understand them, but because they adamantly and vehemently don't want to know them. To know the unvarnished truth is a frightening and foundation-shaking thing for a great number of humans.

Most humans spend their lifetimes constructing a world around themselves with which they are comfortable. They eliminate truths that expose holes in the fabric of their worlds and will fight to keep those truths out. They are happy in their delusions because they don't have to think. They follow their suburban routines and willingly automate themselves in order to quiet the naggings of conscience. To know Truth is to require Action, and for a great majority, that is too much effort.

Now, however, enough people have pulled the thread for enough years using such fantastic tools as the one you are using this very moment, that the stench of reality is infesting even the most ardent denier of fact. Losing jobs, getting anally probed on roadsides, having our personal dark secrets revealed by and to the security state - it's all too much for an expanding number of people. Part of what made the magic work was that the PTB didn't intrude too much into the fantasy. Any more, it's like watching a show where the stagehands have taken over and destroyed the carefully crafted illusion on stage. We are now confronted with the mechanics of our illusion and the magic no longer works.

Which leads us back to gold.

An increasing number of people want their comfortable illusions returned undamaged. That won't happen in our lifetime's, sorry to say. However, we can ensure that our progeny at some point will enjoy a modicum of normalcy without the intrusion of the stagehands. We can not go back, but we can go forward. To do this requires lancing the boil and releasing the poison that has bespoilt our lives. The needle by which we lance is none other than gold.

To be clear, I am not advocating return to a gold standard. That would be asinine and counter-productive, given that not even the stagehands know how much real gold there is.

Rather, I am advocating a worldwide push to audit centuries of gold dealings and to open the results to everyone via the internet, and to list without blinking the entire apparatus of the command and control structure.

It will be very painful because none of us is innocent. Either by action or omission, we are all culpable, but we can atone by being the vehicles of remediation.

This will have a profound effect on us. For those wanting to know the truth about UFOs, here's the means. For those wishing for economic and social equality, here's the path. For those longing to right the wrongs of history, here's the lance and shield. For those desiring to release the choke-hold of corporate fascism, here's the key. For those who simply hunger for truth, you shall receive it in spades.

Like the HAL 9000 computer in 2010, there is only one logical conclusion when confronted with the imperative to hide the truth - you must kill everyone who can expose it. Therefore, it stands to reason that to continue to hide the huge sins of centuries of social manipulation, the PTB must in fact slaughter all of humanity, or risk being exposed. It is simply a matter of self-preservation that we all begin to pull this thread and not give up until the truth is out. If we don't, then we will all be victims of our own desire for normalcy.

5.1.14

At long last, we revive our ever-so-popular Top 10 Films lists. Being a film maker and well-versed in film history (and real history for that matter), we can't resist the opportunity to list the biggest conspiracy flicks ever committed to acetate (celluloid went out decades ago silly), and that we really like too.

Some of these selections are completely fictitious, yet they bear an uncanny resemblance to real history that happened subsequent to the film's release. Some are fictionalized versions of real conspiracies that folks are afraid to talk about in real life. And some are just plain true and have been well known for centuries, if not millennia.

We note that the word 'conspiracy' comes from the Latin con spirare, which simply means "to breathe together'. Thus, anytime two or more people come together for a single purpose, it is a conspiracy. 'Theory' just means that it's an educated guess based on the facts at hand, but that has yet to be proved. When you dissect the term 'conspiracy theory', you find that a lot of people and organizations put forth conspiracy theories, including governments, and as you watch these great flicks, you'll notice that government figures prominently in many (if not all) the great conspiracies of history.

So strap yourself in, get out your tin foil hat, and warm up the Netflix. Here comes 20 hours of pure conspiracy that will leave you so paranoid that Edward Snowden won't even get you up any more.

Yes, Virginia, there really are conspiracies. After all, if there weren't, why would criminal conspiracy be against the law in most civilized nations?

Conspiracy Theory (1997)- We lead off with the conspiracy film to end all conspiracy films, and the one that answers the question, "What in the hell happened to Mel?" Richard Donner plays god to Mel Gibson in the story of a man driven to madness by the certain knowledge that government is creeping into every corner of our lives. And guess what? He's right - not only in the film, but everything the character spews breathlessly trying to get people to see has become common knowledge now. It's one of the things we love about conspiracy theories - they are usually true in most respects - but no one remembers that it was loonies like Mel that told us about it.

Body Double (1984)- This is a quirky and really fun flick, if for no other reason than to see Melanie Griffith nude! Brian de Palma, that wizard of weird, brings us a convoluted tale with dozens of plot twists that keep your brain spinning as you try to keep up with who is the bad guy and who's the good. Even at the end, it's not really clear in the cloud of moral ambiguity. And did we mention Melanie naked?

Executive Action (1974)- Before Oliver Stone had even graduated film school, there was a definitive film exploring who killed JFK. Master tale-teller Dalton Trumbo (Papillon) explores the complex conspiracy behind one of the most shocking events in modern history. A complex consortium of business, military and social interests come together to rid themselves of one of the most radical presidents since Lincoln. Burt Lancaster and Will Geer head up a fine cast of cold, calculating individuals who order the death of presidents for breakfast.

The China Syndrome (1979)- Before Fukushima, everyone thought that run-away meltdowns would go from west to east. We've since found out that this should have been called the New York syndrome. James Bridges inhabits the God chair and bullies Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon into some fine performances as they race to make the world aware of the coming catastrophe. When we watch this one, we wonder why reporters like these don't really exist. You'da thunk when this movie came true three years ago, someone would tell us. It's a conspiracy, I tell ya!

The Stuntman(1980)- This is one of those rare films that shouldn't be good, but it is. Richard Rush is the deity on the set and Peter O'Toole is the deity on screen, turning in a masterful and nuanced performance that is frequently overlooked. The story is a complex web of overlapping conspiracies that leave the audience breathless at the end and wondering if anything really got resolved. After all, in Hollywood, nothing is what it appears to be.

All the President's Men (1976)- This was the defining conspiracy of the 1970s, and it brought down an American president and his entire administration. It also launched the career of Hilary Rodham Clinton, who's a walking conspiracy in and of herself. Allen J. Pakula plays God to Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, who are playing ace reporters Woodward and Bernstein, and who haven't done a damn thing since Watergate, which is yet another conspiracy. It's a great story and the style of this film is obviously the inspiration for JFK, complete with shadowy "Deep Throat" feeding all the right information at all the right times - a conspiracy that has yet to be unveiled.

Capricorn One (1974)- If you believe the Moon landings were faked, this movie will thrill you. If you don't believe it, then this film may change your mind. Peter Hyams writes and lords it over the set, with Eliot Gould playing (yet another) intrepid reporter who's on to the big story, but it's so BIG and there are so many folks trying to kill him that he's having a bit of trouble getting the word out. Granted, this flick is about a Mars trip, but one look at the spacecraft, suits, etc., tell you this is a thinly veiled tale about Kubrick, Disney, NASA, and the trip to the Moon.

Z (1969)- Americans tend to think they invented conspiracy theories, and that all the mayhem in the 60s was their exclusive domain. Costa-Gavras mounts the God chair to tell us differently. This based-on-a-true-story is a French telling of events in Greece in the 60s, with political assassinations, cover-ups, plots, and intrigue. Most Americans don't know this film, which is fine. Keeps copies in stock for us film afficionados. However, for those brave souls who know that films are made in the rest of the world, too, this makes a fine double feature with JFK, so you get a little broader picture of how the world was back then.

The Third Man(1949)- It's a toss-up as to whether this film should be #1. This is a great film in every way. Story by Graham Greene, Carol Reed in the God chair, Orson Wells and Joseph Cotton chasing around on set, some great lines, and a soundtrack that sparked a craze for zither music back when, how can you miss?! This is film noir at it's moody best, with conspiracies run amok in post-war Vienna, and three victorious governments all competing for who gets to take credit for crime busting. In fact, the bureaucratic mess that runs through the whole story is a whole conspiracy in itself, before we toss black markets and war profiteering into the fire. A great film on any list, but right at the top of this one.

Julius Caesar (1953)- Let's see: greatest conspiracy in Western history, written by William Shakespeare, lorded over by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, starring Marlon Brando, James Mason, John Geilgud, Greer Garson, and enough quality acting to fill four films - and you wonder why this tops the list? Imagine the Senate getting together to plot the death of not only a president, but a living god, by thrusting knives into his all too human flesh, which spawns one of the most famous questions in all history, gives us the name for an entire month and makes the Ides of March a cultural singularity. This is the definitive film version, which is why Olivier, Brannaugh and Gibson never attempted to tackle it again. This is the conspiracy that gave birth to a thousand conspiracies!

Honorable Mention: With so many good conspiracies out there, it's hard to make a list of just 10. We have to throw Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much somewhere in this list. Both versions (Hitch liked it so much he made the film twice). The first one has Peter Lorre at his nasally best, while the second has Jimmy Steward sputtering and Doris Day chirping. If you want a fun triple-header for a lazy Saturday afternoon, Netflix these two with Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn in the comedic send-up, called Foul Play.

So there you have it. If we added something you don't like, or forgot something you think should have been here, just remember how much you paid for this list. These are the flicks that have entertained us for decades, and stay fresh even after dozens of viewings. Like good books, you wear out copy after copy over the years. Thank God for MPEG4!

Happy Viewing and hope to catch you lurking around this site again some time soon.

Sampai jumpa!
==========================================
Reading our list inspired long-time LFS fan Robert to pipe up with his own list. Of course, we couldn't agree more with his choices, with the exception of Minority Report, just because we hate Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise - double whammy. Have a look:

Hello Bernard:
When you talk about media I stop still and listen carefully. As a media
observer myself, your post on conspiracy movies inspired some thought,
so I check my collection of DVDs. For the most part your list of best
conspiracy films corresponds to mine with a few exception and additions.
1.) "Seven Days in May." Military coup d'etat frighteningly prescient
for Obammy times since he has fired over two hundreds command level
officers in some kind of unexplained purge.
2.) "Conspiracy Theory." Loved that movie. I was a victim of microwave experiments in the Army in 1958.
3.) "Manchurian Candidate." Both new and old versions are good. Both
Meryl Streep and Angela Lansbury's character as Mrs. Shaw was
extraordinary. The mind controlled operative, Raymond Shaw, used to take
down a government makes me think of all the drug-induced mass shootings
these days that invoke more and more social controls.
4.) "The Island." An updated clone of "The Clonus Horror" (1979) where
it's the politicians that want immortality via a top-secret cloning
conspiracy to harvest body parts for themselves.
6.) "Executive Action." In my mind the JFK assassination is the first
coup d'tat. Baby Bush's selection the 2nd, and the results of 9/11 the
final.
7.) "Enemy of the State." A real foreshadowing of the NSA, DHS, and NDAA goons out of control takeover.
8.) "Three Days of the Condor." A secret CIA within the CIA manipulating sovereign countries around the world for exploitation.
9.) "Minority Report." Pre-crime, facial and cornea recognition, robotic
transportation systems, drones of all sorts are getting truer all the
time. This is about using scape goats in a future society to support a
corrupt system. Nothing new here. I sure like Max von Sydow a lot more
in the old Bergman films.
10.) "The Matrix." A great metaphor for waking up.
11.) "The Third Man." Wartime black-marketer Harry Lime (Orson Wells)
amid footage of bombed out post war Vienna. It begins at a funeral and
ends at a second funeral for the same person. Full circle.
There are more as genres criss-cross, but, for me, these films are my favorite ones with messages about conspiracy.

1.1.14

Yes indeed, folks, it's time once again for our world famous Far Side Predilection Issue, where instead of making useless predictions, we simply follow the trends to their natural conclusions. If you've hung around here for any length of time, then you'll know that last year's Issue was 99 and 44/100% correct, which is how we got to be world famous in the first place. You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows!

So, without further ado (or is that aduh), let's get down to bidness:

Bald is Beautiful

Earth's northern hemisphere will begin glowing brightly in X and Gamma ray wavelengths, thanks to Fukushima denial. This will garner the attention of a number of extraterrestrial races, notably from the Orion Arm of the galaxy, who will complain loudly that the radiation is interfering with broadcast signals and ruining Duck Dynasty. The show's ratings go through the roof.

"Radioactive" will be the new buzz word at Paris and Milan this year. Glow-in-the-dark clothes, bald toothless models and plutonium jewelry will be all the rage. Sales of prednisolone will explode and it will come to replace Xanax as the latest drug craze among Hollywood's oh-so-hip.

A new dance will sweep the globe, called the Fission, in which dancers slam into one another in very cramped spaces trying to overcome physical resistance and merge into a single entity, releasing vast amounts of energy in the process. The dance will become a major sourse of energy in the Third World, especially Iran.

Tsar Baby

Vladimir Putin will reveal his Romanov roots and revive the Russian Tsars. He will celebrate his coronation by cooking an omelet using Faberge eggs. This will cause quite a stir as men around the world suddenly realize that you can be manly and cook too.

Not to be outdone, Obama will announce his roots as a Kenyan prince and begin the process of turning the US into yet another barren African hell-hole. Most Americans won't even notice the difference. Meanwhile, in Kenya a goat will be born with a face that bears a striking resemblance to Obama's. Thousands will hail it as an omen, but no one will be quite sure of what.

Meanwhile, Queen Liz will declare Charlie unfit to be king, thus clearing the way for Billy to assume the throne in 30 years when she finally kicks off. By then, Billy will be so old that he'll spend a month enjoying some of the perks of being king and then abdicate to let Georgie take over, while he and Kate take a Mediterranean cruise on the royal barge.

Almost unnoticed, Sultan Hamengkubuwono of Yogyakarta will marry the daughter of the king of Thailand, sparking a new martial art exercise craze called Thaindo. It will be notable for its unusual style combining long periods of thinking about moving (called meditation) and short spurts of movement involving rice and food bowls. Senior citizens the world over will hail it as a Godsend, while critics will say it hardly varies from day-to-day activities.

China Sheik

Due to China's increasing hunger for power and the US demand slowing appreciably, relations between China and Saudi Arabia will continue to warm. So much so, in fact, that China will declare Islam an tolerated religion and Chinese citizens will begin sporting keffiyeh as the new must-have fashion accessory, especially since it serves double duty as a pollution mask. Things will start going down-hill fast, though, as the Chinese will keep calling the Islamic holy book "aw-Kolan".

The final nail in the Sino-Saudi relationship will be when three commerical airliners crash dive into Shanghai office towers after being hijacked by the very same Saudi terrorists who pulled off 9/11. The hijackers will all survive, of course.

Nexus Perplex Us

The internet will continue to scream forward with people legally changing their names to IP addresses. This will cause major problems for those who use IPv6, since the names will not fit on standard identification documents. As a result, IPv7 will be introduced, with only 128 characters instead of the usual 1,040.

Wzk2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334 will rise up as the new guru of geeks when he develops the next-generation Google glass, which involves implanting artificial cornea that receive text and images directly out of the aether and project it onto the retina of users. This will lead to a new phenomenon of people walking in circles due to mistakes in Google Maps. In their frustration, people will be screaming into the Bluetooth-enabled headsets trying to get things sorted out. Old timers will remark how the world's just gone completely crazy with folks wandering around in circles talking to themselves. Psychiatry will go into severe decline as shrinks will no long be able to tell who's nuts and who isn't.

Meanwhile, an Australian man will cause a huge stir when he develops a new laser holography system that can project full-motion 3-D objects onto the sky itself, using moisture in the air as billions of tiny reflectors. He will announce his invention by faking the Second Coming and scaring two and a half million people in Melbourne out of their minds. The Vatican will immediately put in an order for 1,000 of the devices.

The Greater Depression

Christmas 2014 will see the resurgence of "Depression Chic" as the latest toy craze in the US and EU will be home-made rag dolls and hand-carved wood blocks. The latest and hottest app will be Foxfire DIY, as people (who still have devices and electricity) rediscover the joys of building their own tree-branch huts and foraging for food and herbs. "Mushrooming" will be the new catch phrase among the urban-survival hipsters, as they use the last bit of gasoline in their cars to get to the nearest forest, when edible fungi become the new currency.
Mad Max films will see a revival in kerosine-lamp theaters as people try to glean any tips on post-apocalyptic survival from the old Mel Gibson series. Mel's career will see a major upsurge as he becomes the guru of medieval and post-apocalyptic warfare and living. His films Braveheart and The Patriot will become required viewing in ad hoc war colleges as folks try to crash-learn military tactics while facing off with hordes of federal goons.

Last in Space

A Kyrgyztani man will try to garner the same success as the Dutch folks putting together Mars I. He will put up a website seeking volunteers and donations to launch the first human settlers to Venus. The website will receive a one-rouble donation and one volunteer; a goat farmer in Kafyristan who is the only person on Earth who hasn't heard about Venus' atmosphere. Critics reviewing the reality show will note the effective use of chirping crickets to enhance the desolate feeling at the group's press conferences.

The Chinese, emboldened with the success of the Chang'e program, will move ahead with the Chang'f series. The first launch in September will land an inflatable habitat in the Sea of Tranquility housing three specially trained dogs, who will seek out and urinate on the legs of the Apollo 11 lander. A mission controller outside Beijing will be quoted as saying, "That's one small piss for a dog, and one giant piss on Mankind."

Well, folks...that's the pre-news from here on the Far Side. Don't forget to keep looking down - so you don't see the writing on the wall. All of us here at the Far Side World Headquarters (FSWH) wish each and every one of you a most happy and healthful New Year! May all your monkeys be trainable and may all your chickens be born upright.

Keep stopping by Life on the Far Side and Radio Far Side, as we continue to bring you the most insightful and informative material on the internet (which ain't saying much, really). We'll continue to bring our unique brand of inforedutainment (tm) with an IndoTex (r) flavor each and every other few days.